What's your favorite published adventure?

Do you prefer running something published or something home-brewed and why?

What do you like about published adventures? What do you like about home-brews?

My favorite published adventure is Sunless Citadel, I love introducing new players to the game using this one. 

I prefer running homebrew however, there's something about the freedom that it gives the players versus a published adventure. A published adventure is good for a structured format that leaves little ambiguity on what the goals are and how the players should get there. A homebrew just feels more organic, there's an ability for the players do explore their characters, the stories, lore, and anything else they feel is important to them. A published adventure really has the information in the book/pamphlet and doesn't dig too deep into character development. In the end I feel published adventures are great learning tools, but the game really shines when you bring something that is crafted by the DM and elaborated on by the players, a homebrew.

I might not have a basis of comparison, as I don't think I've used a published module in 20 years +

However, I'd echo DMThac0's sentiments about home-brew.

I very much like that I get to tell the stories I want, it's organic, it's adaptive ( for when the Players go off the beaten path ), and having a home-brew story and setting allows me to continuously tailor and trim the story to what my Players enjoy. Plus I love world and story building - and try and make each new campaign uniquely its own.

If I was going to run a one-shot, or a limited engagement run - I'd probably reach for a published adventure, with pre-published characters, as home-brew run well, and consistently, is a lot of work - more so that such a limited run might warrant.

But for a long term campaign, I'm not even tempted to reach for published modules.

For 5th edition, I think my favorite may actually be the intro adventure,  "The Lost Mine of Phandelver".

I think it's a very good intro for new players to the game as well as a good intro for new DMs.  I've read Storm Kings Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd. There are elements of inspiration in all of them but you will have to work some to turn them into your own and there are parts that at least to me just don't make sense (or are logically inconsistent).  

For newer DMs, I would recommend starting with something published, but then start changing it to really make it your own. Along the way you will develop (hopefully) a comfort level and a style.  As you get more comfortable move more and more into your home creations... till ultimately you end up with Homebrew.

Homebrew requires more, or at least a different, type of world building and description.  I find it more engaging and as a DM I feel I have a much better handle on what's going on.  For example, I may not know all the factions going on in Waterdeep,  but in my homebrew town of Farharbor I can easily start making things up and add them as needed to the campaign.

Quote from Koradgee >>

 Homebrew requires more, or at least a different, type of world building and description.  I find it more engaging and as a DM I feel I have a much better handle on what's going on.  For example, I may not know all the factions going on in Waterdeep,  but in my homebrew town of Farharbor I can easily start making things up and add them as needed to the campaign.

 This has certainly been my experience. I got stressed out running LMoP because I was always worried about whether or not I was getting the details of the world "correct". But in a Home-brew, if I'm uncertain about something I have the liberty to improvise and make things up because it's my world to begin with!

Im the homebrew DM myself. It just offers so much more freedom with the players. Players, I feel can make decisions more freely. As a DM I just make adjustments or even play on their decisions if they steer off coarse. Coming up with adventure/campaign changes are fun. Like what could or would of happened they had gone in the direction I intended and what will now happen now that they did not. I tend to keep tons of notes within a notepad with what they did or did not do. I just keep that main goal of the campaign in mind and work something out. I also like homebrew because I feel that it in a way forces a DM to be more creative and to think outside of the box.      

I haven't looked at a single 5e published adventure, so my favorites are all very, very, very old :) 

I liked published stuff just fine when I was starting out, and there's still a certain feel to them that I like. But I found myself bursting with ideas, and liking to draw maps. So off I went, and really have rarely used published ones since then.

Published adventures are great resources for ideas, but I think many GMs prefer to either make up their campaigns entirely or use modules as extra flavor. There are some awesome published adventures out there and there is nothing wrong with taking out what you don't want and just using the bits you like.

Homebrew is always something that you have more control over creatively. However published is good when someone calls you and says let’s do something tonight for a few hours. This doesn’t mean all published can be done in one night.  The downside to published is you may have a character who has already been through this dungeon, therefore they know things that characters typically should not know.which can ruin it for all.

 I like being able to take the elements of published And mixing them in my own home brew.

I'm so glad to read all the other DMs' responses! I was worried I wasn't a true D&D player/DM if I rarely used published adventures or worlds, but I completely agree that homebrew gives a lot of freedom. I find that I'm able to put lots of details in and cater it to my players, and I feel constricted by using published material only. 

I prefer making my own stuff, but as a fledgling DM ( though I am still new ), I used a Modified dragon of icespire peak and that was a great experience. 

I'm just at the end of my first campaign (LMOP) as DM. I can already tell that my particular style will be to use the framework of a prewritten adventure, but then hang my own homebrew encounters/puzzles/roleplaying from it. For this first campaign, at least, it's felt like the best of both worlds. Moving on to DOIP now.

These days, for reality reasons, I run published content. I've run DoIP, CoS (both AL) and am currently running a pseudo homebrew mashup of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Tales from the Yawning Portal and possibly a bit from The Lost City of Mezro.

Published content, particularly on a virtual table top, requires far less prep time than building something homebrewed.

That said, good homebrewed content is better than published. Logical inconsistencies can be removed, you can link the content and NPCs in a logical and consistent sandbox world. It also gives much greater creative freedom at the cost of time which is scarce when you have work, family and other commitments ... so for now I will continue to run published content.

As far as favorite published content goes - I like GSM/TftYP because of the modular nature and the way you can drop these into an ongoing campaign.

Maze of the Blue Medusa and The Dark of Hot Springs Island are the only published books that made me put my home game on hold in order to run them.

I will ask though, when you create a game by "homebrew" do you still stick to the main core of the rules, the monsters abilities and their basic alliances or do you just throw that out the window and do what you like?

Example - mindflayer boss who has zombies as hos underlings, in the MM is states mindflayers are scared of undead as they cam not control them